Charley Hull said a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot in Ibiza was a childhood dream come true, and she came away talking less about glamour than about how hard the work was. The world’s 8th ranked female golfer said she flew out for the shoot, landed, went straight into hair and makeup and kept going until 8 p.m.
Hull said the assignment felt especially meaningful because one of her main idols growing up was Anna Kournikova, whom she remembered always appearing in Sports Illustrated. The golfer said that made the request feel like a full-circle moment, one that turned a childhood image into a day of long takes and repeated changes in front of the camera.
The timing matters because Sports Illustrated has added Hull to its swimsuit roster, putting a top golfer into one of the magazine’s most visible glamour lanes just as she is speaking publicly about what the shoot was actually like. Hull said the job was only an hour and 50-minute flight from the UK, but once she got there the day became a grind: hair and makeup, then hours of shooting, then a boat content day the next morning.
That is where the story stops looking like a simple celebrity crossover. Hull said the experience gave her a new appreciation for swimsuit models because what looks easy from the outside is anything but. She said it was “pretty cool,” but also that she had not realized how hard it was, which fits uneasily with the wider debate around women’s sports and commercial images that can be read as empowering by some and damaging by others.
That debate has been around Hull before. Six weeks ago, she defended Sydney Sweeney over criticism of a Novig commercial, and in September Felicity Palmateer said the 42-second spot had damaged female athletes. Hull’s new comments do not settle that argument, but they do give it a sharper edge: one of the most recognizable golfers in the world is saying the work behind the image is real, demanding and not remotely effortless.
Hull flew home that evening and said she ate loads of cookies at the airport. The question now is not whether the shoot happened; it is when Sports Illustrated will put Hull’s material in front of readers, and how much of this behind-the-scenes version will survive once the polished version arrives.
